The Connection Still Holds
by The Assassin's Pen
Summary: SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI That link is still there, and on a night where she's walking the Falcon alone she sees him again. He isn't aware of her, fast asleep some star system or two away, but he makes her think all the same. Missing scene/ Force bond exploration from TLJ. Can be romantic Reylo or just a strong connection. One shot.


I'm a HUGE fan of the concept of Rey and Ben meeting in the middle and becoming allies so you can only imagine the internal combusting I did seeing The Last Jedi. When they started talking over their bond I about had an aneurysm and when they started fighting back to back I probably lost a few years to heart shock but that's fine.

Naturally, I had to write about their bond and what may have happened after she wakes and he doesn't.

* * *

When Rey got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, she didn't expect to see Kylo Ren sleeping on the lounge in the common area of the Millennium Falcon.

She froze mid step, staring wide eyed and blinking twice before swallowing down the sterile scent of his quarters. She'd smelled it before, back on Luke's island when she'd demanded why he'd killed his own father. She knew the connection still held even after Snoke's death, knew there was something far more potent linking them, but she hadn't seen him since they'd left the salt planet and that was weeks back.

And yet here he was. Asleep, of all things, and peacefully, it seemed. She knew logically he was curled up in his quarters on a First Order ship, but the way he appeared on the Falcon in that moment it was like he'd fallen asleep at the game table, the holo-pad Rose had been reading earlier that evening still laying by his hand as though he was the one who'd left it.

Slowly, she approached, eyes rovingf his body for...what she wasn't certain. Seeing him like this was strange. She'd seen him injured, unconscious, and partially undressed but this was a new vulnerability she didn't know quite how to process. Why was the Force linking them while he was unconscious? How was that even possible, when her mind had been off him and his was quiet in sleep?

She was standing over him now, and she sank into a crouch, studying his face. He was laying on his left side, knees drawn slightly up and head buried into what she assumed must be a pillow—on the Falcon it looked like he was resting against one of the crew's discarded flight suits. Cleanliness hadn't exactly been a priority as they'd flit from place to place to stay out of the First Order's hands.

His shoulder and side rose and fell gently with his breathing and she found herself entranced by the gentle rhythm. For a moment she even felt the oddest impulse to brush some of his dark hair away from the side of his face, but even if she could touch him without both of them trying she didn't want to risk it. She was still so disappointed in how things had happened, still angry, still wishing he'd seen and chosen differently.

But she was good at waiting. And something deep in her heart told her to keep waiting and maybe, just maybe Ben Solo would emerge again from the smoldering ruins of Kylo Ren.

Like this, she could believe it even more. His lips were parted slightly and his face relaxed in sleep, his head tilted in such a way that his throat was bared and the gentle pulse inside was exposed. She watched that flickering, remembering for a moment how it had pressed warm and strong against her fingers when she'd checked on him before fleeing the ruins of Snoke's throne-room.

Some fate or will of the Force had kept that heart beating, she thought, her eyes following the mark she'd left on him all the way across his throat and down into his chest. He was sleeping shirtless, all the deep scarring left from their first real encounter on equal ground open for her to see.

She swallowed, eyes flicking from the gouge in his chest to the ugly lines of scar on his left shoulder to the roots of the blaster mark in his side that weren't completely covered by his position. They'd injured him quite badly, and as Rey looked back at his face she felt certain he still lived because there was something yet he needed to do. Her saber mark on him alone should have been enough to kill him, with the way it bisected his artery and dug into his breast. She blinked, remembering the contrast as the pads of her fingers pressed against that gouge.

 _She woke, and the first thing she understood was pain._

 _Pain in her shoulder, pain in her stomach and side where she'd landed, pain in her head from the torture and the strain. Gritting her teeth and gasping, she choked on a heated breath and blinked, eyes stinging in the flood of chemical smoke from a ruined ship. It took moments for her vision to clear, but the first thing she saw when it did was the still figure cloaked in black laying across the room._

" _Ben," she whispered, hoarse and scrambling as she worked to get to her hands and knees. Her heart was suddenly pounding and a mantra of "no no NO NO" rolled over in her head. He couldn't be dead, there had to be a better end to this. There had been light, there_ _ **was**_ _light still inside, she needed to see it come to the surface._

 _The floor burned her hands and fire continued to fall around them but she didn't stop until she finally made it to his side. The feeling of him in the Force hit her all at once and her breath rushed out of her, making her gasp as she struggled to contain the overwhelm of sensation. Though she was fairly certain such a rush of power wouldn't be coming from a dead man, she reached her hand towards his throat anyway, trusting her instincts._

 _Her fingers found the soft place right beneath his jaw and pressed in, waiting. The line of the scar she'd left on him felt strange against the pads of her fingers, but even stranger was the warm, steady vitality she could feel beneath._

 _His heart was still pumping, the blood moving powerfully through his body in defiance of the desolation around them. For a flickering moment she considered binding him and taking him with her, but she shook it off like cold web and slowly withdrew, watching his broad chest expand as he drew breath._

 _Never once, looking down at the most powerful dark side user still alive, did she consider stopping the heart faithfully working inside him. Never once did she consider silencing him as an option._

 _Ben Solo needed to come home, and while Kylo Ren shared his heartbeat he would be allowed to live._

" _I will see you again," she'd promised. "I know there's still something left that can be saved. I saw it, I just need you to see it too."_

 _And then she'd left him._

And now again, here he was.

"There's still time," she whispered, looking earnestly at his face. "I meant that. And even if you don't believe me, you are still not alone. You won't be, as long as I'm still alive. I will not give up on you."

Slowly, hesitant, feeling she needed some way to convey that she was still there, still waiting for him to change his mind, she reached for him. She didn't really expect it to work, but when her fingers brushed feather-light against his hair a tingling ran through her entire body and she knew the bond had only gotten stronger. This close to his skin the memory of heat came through the Force and pressed against her palm, and for the briefest moment she heard the shifting of a storm trooper's armor and the quiet exhale as he sighed in his sleep.

And then he was gone, and she was left crouching in the Falcon's common area alone.

Sighing, she picked Rose's holo pad up and stood, setting it on the table. She looked at the rumpled place where he'd been, at the strange way the flight suit still seemed to have an indent from his head, and she felt suddenly weary. Looking up at the ceiling, she breathed slowly, letting her eyes flicker closed as the lingering of his Force presence brushed around her.

"I'm trying, Han," she whispered, opening her eyes and dropping her gaze back to the lounge. "I'm trying. I still think he has a chance, he's still fighting. He just doesn't know how to walk away."

Slowly, she moved closer and then sat where she'd seen him laying, shifting to draw her legs up until she gave in and lay her head down where his had been. She sighed and furrowed her brow as she closed her eyes, her palm flat against the cushion.

Strangely, there was a smell of spiced oil in the flight suit and as she drifted off she was warmed by what she could have sworn was a body heat not her own.


End file.
